RAC defends the truck drivers' image
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• Forget those stories about how other motorists fear truck drivers. They love them, says the RAC, because they're calm, courteous and the model of good behaviour.
Having proposed to the Government that road rage drivers should be sentenced to therapy, the RAC confirms that truckers are unlikely to need it.
-The researchers on two recent television programmes on road rage found just one case of a raging truck driver.
Truck drivers are so courteous that they let cars in and because car drivers respect the size of trucks they always give way, says the RAC.
"They're not getting into the same tussles that car drivers do and they don't generally compete for the same space," says spokesman Richard Woods.
The RAC does get some complaints about truck drivers cutting up cars "but generally it's people not quite understanding that driving a truck is different to driving a car," says Woods.
The RAC is keen to hear the views of Commercial Motor's readers as part of its research. "We'd like to incorporate an understanding of how car and lorry drivers interact," says Woods.
The RAC may be in for a shock. Mick Kelleher, of the Driver's Action Movement, says drivers have to control their tempers otherwise they'd be stopping every five minutes.
"You're always getting a bit het up what with some of the car drivers," he says. "Caravans are the main things—they always sit in the middle lane blocking it" Kelleher suggests truckers may even have become blasé because they see so much bad driving. "We're immune to a certain extent," he says. "Though I'm not saying we don't lose our rag occasionally."